


New Skills for the New Year

by vonPeeps



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/M, Love Confessions, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, did you say what I think you just said
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5603800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vonPeeps/pseuds/vonPeeps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt sentence "I was dressed in a completely inappropriate shade of pink." Sherlock practices flirting on an unaware Molly - how on Earth could that go wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Skills for the New Year

I was dressed in a completely inappropriate shade of pink. For a crime scene, I mean. Not the pale pink that feels like the fizz you get when a cute stranger smiles at you on the tube. Not warm rose, like my grown up cardie for afternoon teas with Meena. No, I had to be wearing the ratty salmon sweatshirt with a hole at the elbow when Sherlock pulled me out of the door this morning with a “solve crimes, hurry up, cab’s waiting.” Under the harsh fluorescent lights, I looked only marginally more alive than the man who lay at our feet. Even fuchsia would be better than this!

I clutched at the coffee cup, blue fingers wrapped tightly round the red cardboard go-cup for warmth. Sure, turning the heating off in a skyscraper office block saved money over the holiday period, but it made dating corpses pretty difficult too. 

“I really can’t be any more specific without running tests, Sherlock. Do you want me to guess?” Ignoring his huff, and the twist of his face, I cut him off. “Thought not. So for the twentieth time, I will have an answer for you on Monday. At work.” As I turned to leave, he grabbed hold of my arm, jostling the cup and spilling precious hazelnut latte over the grubby carpet. 

“Wait.” he said, tugging at my arm again. 

“Why?”

“Someone has to listen to me, and John was too busy pretending to be a responsible adult for once” he said. 

“Getting Izzie’s shots is not ‘pretending’, Sherlock. Some people have lives that revolve around more than just dead bodies, you know?”

“How dull for them. Anyway, as I was -“

“No, Sherlock. It’s cold, and I have precisely 32 hours before I have to be back at work. I’m going home to my sofa and my book. If all you need is an audience then get yourself a puppy.”

“Fine.” he replied. “If warmth and that barely disguised pornography you were reading this morning is more important to you than working out who killed poor Mr Jeffries here then go!”

I bristled, temper rising with every word he spoke. He was skating on thin ice - that’s all I can say. Mr callous-disregard-for-victim’s-names-under-any-other-circumstance had spent months of his life watching Jeremy Kyle and Homes under the Hammer, and he had the cheek to comment on my taste in novels?

“How dare you?” I wrenched my arm free, wheeling to face him. “I’ve had enough! I will see you on Monday, at work, when I actually get paid to listen to your crap.” I crossed the room, stomping past all the cubicles as I wove my way to the door. As I got there, I paused, a wicked thought zinging through my mind. Turning to stare at him, a traitorous smile twitching at the corner of my mouth, I made my decision. He must have known about my book somehow…

“I didn’t know ‘The Duchess War’ was your kind of book, Sherlock. Been learning something new? I thought the sex in it was quite tame, myself.” Eyes glazed, slightly flickering, no snappy retort - mission accomplished. Satisfied, I left the room, slipping silently through the corridors to the waiting lift. 

I didn’t have to wait long for my train, normal service resuming now all the bank holidays were out of the way. Slumped back on a seat, carpet covering prickling through the thin fabric of my jumper, I ran the morning through my mind. From the knock on my door, disturbing what should have been my last lie-in of the holiday, to my oh so satisfying parting shot, we had been knocking sparks off each other all morning. Every single thing about him seemed to rile me these days. The way he writes with his left and his right hand, staring into the microscope all the while. The way he swirls and flaps about in his ridiculous coat. HIs hair ruffling after our walk in the rain this morning. The way his eyes crinkle when he looks at me, like he knows some secret joke and I’m to dull to get the punchline. His…

Lost in my list, I nearly missed the crackle of the announcer calling my stop. I grabbed my bag, darting between the paper-reading passengers to squeeze out of the door at the last ‘mind the gap’. The drizzle had picked up into a steady rain, soaking through my clothes as I trudged through the streets to my flat. 

I pulled myself up the stairs to my flat, mind fixed on a steaming cup of tea and the towel warming on the radiator by the door. So focussed on thoughts of warmth, that I nearly tripped over the man perched on the top step by my door. 

“What are you- how- no, why are you here?” I spluttered. 

“I was too rude.” Sherlock said, his voice low. 

“Yes.” I said, fiddling with my key in the door to avoid looking at him. “You were.”

“Not good. No one tells me anymore.” 

“Maybe at 36 we expect you to be able to filter your thoughts by yourself, rather than letting them all spill out of your mouth.”

“Like you did when you were teasing me about the sex book, you mean?” he shot back. 

I smiled back at him. “Oh, I knew exactly what I was saying. I just thought a little payback was in order.”

“Payback?”

“Yup. Insult for insult, that kind of thing.” 

“Insult?” he paused, narrowing his eyes at me. “Molly, I- I think you misunderstood my intention. I was not trying to insult you, I was trying to… Well, it doesn’t matter what I was trying to do if the meaning was lost.” 

Confused, I turned the events of the morning around and about in my mind, looking from every angle to try and work out what he meant. A suspicion nagged at me, ignoring my attempts to dismiss it. With no better explanation, I decided to risk it. 

“Sherlock, were you… flirting with me?”

“I have been led to understand that if you have to ask that then you probably aren’t flirting. Not successfully, at any rate. Mary says-“ 

“Hang on, you’ve been talking to Mary about flirting? Mary subtle-as-a-brick, “I am the best thing to happen to you” Watson?” 

“Erm, yes?”

I wiped away a tear that was threatening to spill, before looking across to him, my face deliberately schooled to hide my amusement. He stood, rubbing at his hair with the towel snagged off my radiator (of course), scowling. 

“Why?” I asked, anger forgotten at his obvious discomfort.  
“This is not my area, Molly. You know that.”

“What, flirting?” 

“Any of it. Relationships, how you are supposed to talk to someone you like, us. I feel clumsy and awkward and I don’t like it. So I asked Mary for help, and she suggested… this.”

“Flirting and crime scenes?” I asked. 

“Well, her first idea was dinner, but she mentioned that flirting at work was an acceptable start.” 

“I don’t think it counts as work if you drag me out to look at a murder scene on my day off… hang on, a start to what?”

“Molly, when I was with Ja-. No. I mean, the whole Magnussen case, it made me realise something. It wasn’t so much that I had been blind to the truth. It was just that I had seen the truth differently. Alone doesn’t protect you, it just makes things more predictable. That’s not safety, that’s escape. But people are… safer, when they reach out to each other. I saw it with John and Mary, something worth working for. A pairing, if you will?” Sherlock gazed at me across the hall, arms behind his back. 

“A pairing? I don’t understand.”

“A couple, Molly. Do keep up. I realised that I want to work together, always, with you.”

“We already work together, Sherlock.” My mind span, his meaning dancing just out of reach. I knew all the words, but I couldn’t put them together in any way that made sense to me. 

“Not at work, Molly.” he said, voice soft. “At life.”

“You want to… date me?”

“I suppose you could put it like that,” he said with a grimace. “Although I will insist on being called your partner over boyfriend. If you must refer to me with anything other than my name, that is.”

“You would be my partner. And we would be-“

“Together. A relationship. Shared experiences, frequent contact, the occasional crime scene and a heightened importance over other connections in my life. Oh, and kissing. There has to be kissing as well.” 

His list had a laugh spilling from my lips. “All that and kissing as well?”

In answer, Sherlock reached out to pull me to his chest. He raised one hand, running it gently down my cheek before tipping my chin up. His lips brushed mine, soft, hesitant strokes that stole my breath and made my mind whirl. Dizzy, I eased back. “Okay.” I whispered, afraid to break the magic of the moment. “Let’s try this partnership, this relationship, together.” The squeeze of his arms around me, the kiss pressed firmly to the top of my head, was all the answer he gave. But it was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy ShSpesh day to you all!
> 
> I don't normally write in first person, so any concrit will be welcome!


End file.
